Hardware Review
ARCTIC COOLING ATI SILENCER 5 REV. 2
Cooling a video card while it is overclocked has always been a tricky process. While faster and more power hungry video cards become available, the heat produced by these cards is even greater. Though stock coolers that video card companies place on their products are sufficient for normal use, a more aggressive cooling solution is needed. While effectively cooling the card, the cooling solution should also not sacrifice acoustics inside the case. Arctic Cooling, for years, has provided video card enthusiasts replacement coolers on their cards. Tonight, we'll take a look at Arctic Cooling's ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2. We would like to thank the Xoxide team for making this review possible.
The ATI Silencer 5 Rev. 2 is designed to maximize cooling on your video card. This specific cooler is designed for ATI's X800/X8500 PCI-Express cards. If one is to overclock their video card, a better cooling solution is needed other than the stock. The ATI Silncer 5 Rev 2 just does that. Here are a few specs of Arctic Cooling's video card cooler:
| Fan: | 72 mm |
| Overall Dimensions (active GPU Cooler): | 218.5 x 100 x 31 mm |
| Overall Dimensions (passive Memory Cooler): | 137 x 103 x 35 mm |
| Rated Fan Speed: | 2000 RPM |
| Bearing: | ARCTIC Ceramic Bearing |
| Noise Level: | 0.5 Sone |
| Weight (active GPU Cooler): | 100 g |
| Weight (passive Memory Cooler): | 56 g |
Click the images to see the enlarge version
Installation of the cooler is pretty straight forward. If you have replaced your stock cooler before, the process should be a breeze. A handy installation manual is also provided within the package. As I took out the stock cooler of my X800Pro, I have placed an Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound. My only peeve was that there wasn't much room in the space where the power connector goes. So if you decide to take out the power connector, you would probably run on a bit of a problem. I would've like to have seen a bit more room in this area to make the removal of the connector easier. For testing, we'll compare the stock cooler and the ATI Silencer 5 rev 2 and see the maximum core and memory speeds they can handle. We will be using ATI Tool to modify our X800 Pro's core and memory speed. We will also measured the temperature of the card with the stock cooler as well as when the Silencer 5 is installed. We will also use 3D Mark 2003 as our system load. Our test system is as follows:
| ASUS A8N-SLI |
| AMD 64 3700+ |
| 4 x 512 MB Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR 4000 |
| 2 x 80 GB Western Digital SATA |
| 16 LG DVD-RW |
| Silverstone ST56F 560W PSU |
Click the images to see the enlarge version of the charts
By just looking our charts, we can easily tell that the Silencer 5 works great on lowering the cards temperature even if it's overclocked at about 15-20%. It was also very silent during our benchmark. Compared to the stock cooler's performance, the Silencer 5 performed admirably well. Keeping a card cool under an overclock state is never always easy. However, with the Silencer 5, the card ran very smoothly and without crashes while its core and memory were overclocked at respectively.
We were very impressed with how well the Silencer 5 performed. With its easy installation, quiet acoustics and very good performance, we can't help but to give the cooler a score of 9 out 10. If only the gap between where the PCI-ex connector was a bit wider, the connector would be un-plugged easily. Overall, the ATI Silencer 5 rev 2 is a very well made graphic card cooler which performs very well even at an overclocked environment. We are also pleased to give our well earned recomendation award for the ATI Silencer 5. We would again like to thank the Xoxide team for lending us a sample of the card cooler. If you wanted to get more info on this cooler check out Xoxide's page here. If you're interested in other coolers, Xoxide has a very good variety of VGA cooling products. Check out Xoxide's selection here.
